"Clayton Vale"

It's been a six day running week and I feel I am beginning to really get back in to some kind of shape. The early week included a nine mile track session of 6x800/400 jog/400 fast making it the first "full" workout I have done for several weeks, and one that had very few athletes left at the end!

The best running has been over this weekend around Manchester's Velodrome at Sportcity (home to the 2002 Commonwealth Games) where my daughter has been competing and winning in the UK National Cheerleading and Stunt Championships. She will be off to represent the UK at the European Championships in Slovenia in July. Well done Sarah!

In between the cheerleading sessions it also gave me the opportunity to run two very different quality efforts -

Firstly, a seven mile circuit along the Medlock Valley through east Manchester's Clayton Vale. This Local Nature Reserve has seen heavy investment over the last few years, and it is interesting to run through what feels like a rural setting whilst being no more than a couple of hundred metres from the urban sprawl of a post industrial northern city. Not always the nicest of environments.

Today I ran a very tough interval session from Sportcity straight down the Ashton Old Road into the heart of Manchester's Victorian Quarter. A very different experience and something to focus on between six sets of 4 minutes fast, 2 recovery.

Weekly mileage 37. Annual mileage 315 (week 11). races 5.